Björklunden Collection, 1935-2016 | Lawrence University Archives

Björklunden vid Sjön, Swedish for "Birch Grove at the Lake" (but commonly translated to "Birch Forest by the Water") is a 425-acre estate on the Lake Michigan shore just south of Baileys Harbor in Door County, Wisconsin. A place of great beauty and serenity, the estate was bequeathed to Lawrence University in 1963 by Donald and Winifred Boynton of Highland Park, Illinois. Since 1980, Lawrence has offered a series of adult-education seminars at Björklunden, interrupted only by a 1993 fire that destroyed the estate’s main lodge. In 1996, construction was completed on a new and larger facility, and the Björklunden seminars resumed. A popular series of weekend retreats for students and faculty have also been running since the lodge reconstruction.

Following a 2007 expansion project, the two-story Björklunden lodge is a 37,000 square-foot structure containing a great room, multi-purpose and seminar rooms, dining room and kitchen, as well as 22 guest rooms. The lodge accommodates a wide variety of seminars, meetings, conferences, receptions, family gatherings, musical programs and other special events and is available for use throughout the year. In addition to the main building, the Björklunden estate also includes a small wooden chapel built in a late 12-century Norwegian stave church (stavkirke) style, handcrafted by the Boyntons between 1939 and 1947.

Scope and Contents: This collection contains materials documenting the campus, programs, and operations at Björklunden, the property owned by Lawrence University in Bailey's Harbor, WI. Records date from 1935 to 2015 and include administrative files, oral history interviews with people affiliated with the property, photographs, and subject files. Subjects documented include the buildings and grounds, the 1993 lodge fire and reconstruction, summer seminar programs, and the gifting of the property to Lawrence by Donald and Winifred Boynton in 1963.